Looking
by LuxaLucifer
Summary: "Sleep and sex, that's how I'll remember Starkhaven." Zevran and his Warden are taking time off in Starkhaven when the Warden notices a tattoo for the first time. A strongly rated T. M!Mahariel.


This whole stupid fic is based of the venom in Master Ignacio's voice when he calls Zevran a whoreson- I'd always assumed that would be a common thing in the Rows, but what if it wasn't? Add my incredibly stupid Warden, and this fic is born. I'm sorry for the gross Warden, I really am. Rated for mentions of sex and genitals? I decided to rate it T- but it's a strong T, I guess. :)

* * *

They'd been in bed for days now. They'd arrived at Starkhaven for some business of his Warden, and no sooner was that done did they buy a room at an inn and stay there.

They'd never agreed to. Zevran couldn't remember a single conversation where one of them had suggested lounging around in bed for a week in the Free Marches. But that was what they were doing, and Zevran liked it.

"Mmm," said Maiti sleepily, pulling Zevran closer and wrapping a long pale arm around his chest.

He was finally waking up then. His Warden was often plagued by nightmares, but when he slept, he _slept._

"You have been asleep forever," said Zevran quietly, lips twitching. "I thought you would never rise."

"What's the point, when we hardly get out of bed?" said Maiti, yawning. "Sleep and sex, that's how I'll remember Starkhaven."

"Rightly so," said Zevran, suppressing a yawn to match the Warden's.

Maitimi leaned in for a kiss, his breath hot and smelly. Zevran kissed him anyways, but not deeply. He was sated for now. It had been a long night full of pleasures.

He thought Maiti felt the same until he felt two strong hands grip his waist and hoist him over the Warden, settling him down over his torso. Zevran obligingly lifted his leg to the other side, but not without raising an eyebrow.

"I am quite sore, you know," said Zevran. "As much as I despise admitting it, I think my stamina may not be up to scratch, hm?"

"That's not what I'm doing," said Maiti, grinning stupidly. "I'm not in the mood for that either. I just want to look at you."

"You look at me all the time," pointed out Zevran, squirming a bit over the flat stomach.

He'd been surprised when he'd met the other elf, how large he'd been. He was nearly a foot taller than Zevran (although that didn't say much, considering there were dwarves nearly equal in height to Zevran) and _muscular_, arms thick and stomach flat and hard. He was huge, wearing heavy armor that made Zevran feel faint just looking at. He was a a walking contradiction, at least to the stereotypes- a tall elf, a strong elf, an Dalish elf who hated humans about as much as he hated trees- and the elf _loved_ trees. That part fit the so-called norm.

"I don't really _look_ at you," said Maiti. "If you haven't noticed, we're usually doing other things."

"Ah, yes, that is true."

The intensity of the Warden's gaze made him a little self-conscious and he reached an arm out to play with the tips of Maiti's red hair, which was spread out against the pillow.

Without warning, the Warden spread his legs out further, causing him to lose balance for a split second, just barely managing to catch himself on his elbow.

"You're just _looking_ at my thighs?" said Zevran, laughing.

"I never really get a good look at all the tattoos here."

"Love, you know it is mostly one tattoo, from my chest to my..." Zevran purposefully left off, dropping a hand to his his hips, where the tattoo traveled further and finished off with a swirl at the base of Zevran's cock.

"That tattoo I _have_ investigated in depth," said Maiti. "Now quiet down, I'm _looking."_

Sometimes Zevran wondered if his Warden was a bit touched in the head.

He felt the ghost touch of fingers along his inner thigh and shivered. He almost said something but bit it back down. He know what the Warden would say if he complained.

"I like this one," said Maiti finally. "It's different from the other ones."

Zevran glanced down and then glanced right back up. "Ah," he said. "I had been hoping you would never notice that one."

Maiti looked at him with concern, his face far too earnest for someone who'd slain an Archdemon and kept count of the darkspawn he'd slaughtered. "What's wrong?"

"And how is it you always know when something is wrong?"

"Your accent gets really thick," said Maiti, tracing the edges of the offending tattoo softly. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I will," said Zevran, surprising himself. "It was a long time ago."

"Yes?"

"That was not the beginning of a story, I am afraid," said Zevran, placing his hands on Maiti's bare chest. "That was just a statement."

"So where's the story?" asked Maiti, green eyes embarrassingly trained on Zevran's own brown ones.

"Give me a moment, I need to collect my thoughts," said Zevran, flicking the Warden in the chest none-too-gently.

He lapsed into silence and tried to collect the memories from the fragments that had risen, a difficult task, seeing as the Warden took the opportunity to run his hands up and down Zevran's arms.

"Stop distracting me," chastised Zevran, swatting at his hands. "No matter, I have it now."

"So tell me," said Maiti, his tone practically an order. Ever the Warden-Commander.

Zevran guided the Warden's hand to the tattoo as he readied himself to speak. "Do you feel those ridges? Under the tattoo?"

"Yeah," said Maiti. "What are they?"

"It's a scar," said Zevran. "When I was eight...yes, I must have been eight, because I was living in those apartments I told you about, the ones near the leather. When I was eight, my, what would you call them? Friends is not the right word. My fellow trainees and I got in a fight."

"Was that really so uncommon, among the Crows?" said the Warden curiously.

"This fight went a little far," said Zevran, reliving the memory as he talked. It had been so long, but he could still see the bare, hard ground, the sneer in the human boy's eyes, the chattering of the other children behind them. Overlying it all was the sharp tang of leather, permeating his senses.

"I do not think I have told you before that most of the Crow recruits are not from the kind of life I had. Many were street urchins caught pick-pocketing, or children 'adopted' from an orphanage. A few were gifts from nobles, although they had nothing more than the rest of us except arrogance."

"I don't think I like where this is headed."

"A truer statement about my training with the Crows has never been said," said Zevran, smirking. "Now where was I? Talking about the recruits...yes, there. I was the only one bought from a brothel in my training cell, and they were often rather cruel about it. I was young and hotheaded, and ashamed of my past. So when another Crow recruit was exceedingly crass one morning, insulting my mother and her mother before me as well as myself, well, I am afraid that I rather lost it."

"I would not want to be on the other end of your fury," said Maiti, amusement in his voice.

"I was not well-trained, nor near as handsome as I am now," said Zevran, leaning down to kiss his Warden before continuing. "And she was older. Anyway, she beat me, and held me down in the dirt with a dagger to my throat."

Maiti's face was horrified, so Zevran shut his open jaw with gentle fingers and rolled his eyes. "It happens often enough, no? I thought she would let me go as soon as I admitted I was a good-for-nothing whoreson or something along those lines, but, well, she had a couple of her...do I call them friends? No, that is still not the right word. Allies is better. She had her _allies_ hold me down as she ripped off my pants carved the sign of a well-known whorehouse into my thigh."

"That's horrible!"

"I know," sighed Zevran. "It wasn't even the right one."

"What?"

"It wasn't the right whorehouse. She carved the symbol of the Cherry Patch into my leg, which is _insulting _considering I grew up in-"

"Why do you always do that?"

Zevran was caught off guard, not by the question, but by the tone of voice. His love was so quiet, his deep voice a mere hum on his throat as spoke.

"Do what?"

"You never refer to anything past seven as your childhood. Only your time at the brothel."

"It was not _much _of one," said Zevran. "But it was something. I was a child with the Crows, but they ripped away my innocence and put a dagger in my hand, and so I cannot call it a childhood."

Silence reigned. Maiti was running his hands up and down Zevran's legs now, one on either side of the big elf's chest. His face was thoughtful. Zevran reached out to it and resisted the temptation to flick him on the nose, instead tracing his face tattoos. It should had been uncomfortable, this silence, but it wasn't.

"So," said Zevran finally. "To end a very long story, I got a tattoo over the scar. It was ugly, and did not help my self-esteem, which, believe it or no, was once quite low. It was my first tattoo."

Maiti looked intrigued about that. "On your inner thigh?"

Zevran chuckled. "Yes, I spread my legs for the artist...and then he gave me the tattoo."

"You, er, weren't still eight, right?"

"Ha, no. I was fifteen. At eight I was still innocent in _that _way." Technically.

"Now you've got my thinking about you spreading your legs," said the Warden, grumbling. "Get off me before I get a hard-on."

"But it was you who put me here!" protested Zevran, grinding against Maiti's groin ever so slightly.

"And it is me who's getting you off," grunted his Warden, pulling himself up so he could gab Zevran by the waist and hoist him off. Zevran thought it would be undignified to kick his love, but oh, how he wanted to.

"Should we order in?" asked Zevran. "The maid's been getting snippy with me lately, but I think they'll deliver us a couple more meals."

"Let's go out," said Maiti. "I miss drinking in a tavern."

"It's still early," said Zevran conversationally.

"I would like to drink a lot," said the Warden.

Zevran grinned. He loved how stupid (well, stupider) his Warden got when drunk. The blind gropes he received were worth it alone, and by the next day Maiti remembered none of it.

"A great idea," said Zevran.

They didn't even put on all their armor, Zevran forgoing gloves and a helm while Maiti wore light armor for what must have been the first time in his entire life. Zevran sometimes wondered if his Warden had been born wearing heavy armor.

As they left the room, Maiti's hand wound its way to Zevran's side, and Zevran took the large calloused hand in his own without hesitation.

* * *

I hope you liked it. :)


End file.
